Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Robert Waldmann: Debt and Taxation Series

Desirable incentive effects of income taxation I Desirable Incentive Effects of Income Taxation II Desirable Incentive Effects of Income Taxation III Desirable Effects of Income Taxation IV Dissipative Signaling Desirable incentive effects of income taxation V Debt and Taxes I Debt and Taxes II Debt and Taxes III Debt and Taxes IV: This Time It’s […]

Desirable incentive effects of income taxation V

Fifth and last. Not relevant to the USA. Back in the day when US unions weren’t totally feeble, MacDonald and Solow wrote a brilliant paper on collective bargaining and tax based incomes policy. Imagine a world in which firms must negotiation with unions (for example imagine Europe). The unions have two aims — they want […]

Desirable Incentive Effects of Income Taxation II

This is the second post in a series. I will discuss advantages of income taxation different from the obvious advantage that taking from people with high income hurts them less than taking from people with low income. Here again, I will assume that, in equilibrium, income tax is returned to the people who pay it […]

Desirable incentive effects of income taxation I

Cases in which income taxation is preferable to lump sum taxation with the same ex post net transfers. The main reason for progressive taxation is that the welfare cost of taking money from wealthy people is lower, because they have a lower marginal utility of consumption. I would like to discuss other advantages of income […]

Kevin Brady’s misleading Wall St. Journal op-ed

by Linda Beale Kevin Brady’s misleading Wall St. Journal op-ed Today’s Wall Street Journal (May 6) features an op-ed by Kevin Brady, right-wing Texas Republican who chairs the notorious “Joint Economic Committee” that has been a notorious producer of anti-tax propaganda-driven studies over the years of Republican hegemony in the House. See “Tax Reform Needs […]

Jeb Bush Says Mitt Romney’s Taxes Are Incredibly High. We Should Elect Bush President in 2016 So That He Can Rectify That.

President Obama won a second term in the White House in part by “dividing the country,” former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) said in an interview that aired on Sunday morning. “I think the basic part of his campaign was that those that were successful weren’t paying their fair share, even though we have incredibly […]

Every State’s State/Local Tax System Taxes the Poor More than the Wealthy–And All Exceed Federal Taxes

by Kenneth Thomas Every State’s State/Local Tax System Taxes the Poor More than the Wealthy–And All Exceed Federal Taxes A new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that in every state in the country, the bottom 20% of households pay more of their income in state and local taxes than […]